Robust Controller Design for Flexible Joint Based on Back-Stepping Approach

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to design a robust controller for a system modeled as a two-mass system, with a flexible coupling. Here, the flexible Joint between two-mass systems is characterized by a spring. In fact, a two-mass system represents most of an industrial drive, like rolling mill drives, automated arms, conveyor belts, and so on, that has a flexible joint, for which oscillation suppression and robust control against model uncertainties and external disturbances are very important. The proposed controller is based on sliding mode control with a back-stepping approach. Two subsystems (upper and lower) strategies are proposed for two- mass systems. On this basis, the classical sliding mode controller for each subsystem based on Lyapunov stability theory and sliding mode control theory is addressed to eliminate the influences of the parametric uncertainties, nonlinearities, and external disturbance load with the aid of sliding mode perturbation observer. Finally, comprehensive simulations are conducted to demonstrate the excellent performance of the proposed method.